Chris Pyke
Post-doctoral Researcher, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)

I am involved in a variety of research related to conservation biology and ecology. Follow the these links to find out more:

• Educational information
• Research interests
• Document downloads
• Data downloads
• Research support

Educational information

• Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara (Geography, December 2002, Advisor: Frank W. Davis)
• M.A., University of California, Santa Barbara (Geography, June 1999)
• B.S., College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia (Environmental geology, June 1996)

Research interests:

• Interactions between ecological, climatic, and socioeconomic systems
• Biophysical modeling of ephemeral wetland ecosystems
• Applications of Geographic Information Systems in conservation biology and and natural resource management
• Spatial data and decision support systems for conservation planning

Documents for downloading:

• My master's thesis: Floristic composition across a climatic gradient in a neotropical forest (1999)
• A version of the master's thesis that appeared in the Journal of Vegetation Science: Floristic composition across a climatic gradient in a neotropical forest (2001)
• Ph.D. dissertation: Modeling vernal pool hydrologic regimes and assessing their sensitivity to climatic and land-use change (available soon, email me for specific chapters) (1) Simulations and field observations of vernal pool hydroregimes for two locations in California, (2) Sensitivity of vernal pool hydrologic regimes to predicted climate change in the Central Valley of California, and (3) Impact of climate and land-use change on the hydrologic regime of rain-fed vernal pools in the Central Valley of California

Data for downloading:

These files contain floating point binary images (bils) for individual hydrologic variables for vernal pools in the Central Valley ecoregion of California. The ecoregion is defined by the California GAP boundary, and the cell size is 1 kilometer. Additional information can be found the vernal pool metadata below and in my dissertation.

Research support:

My work has been made possible through the support of The Nature Conservancy's David H. Smith fellows program, the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Program, and the National Science Foundation-sponsored Research Training Group in Spatial Ecology at UCSB.

Last update:12/02